Part 9 (2/2)

'I doubt it.'

'You speak from ignorance,' he said coldly. 'You will find more happy wives here than in your own home town! And do you know why? Because we don't leave them and spend hours in a public house or in a football stadium! We treat them as companions. We talk to them about our feelings, our ambitions, our s.e.xual needs.'

'I knew you'd get around to s.e.x!'

'Does s.e.x frighten you?' he said savagely. 'Are you going to spend your life as Sleeping Beauty waiting for an emasculated Prince Charming to lead you into a platonic marriage?'

'There's no need to be insulting!' she flared.

'Then why did you insult me? Or didn't you think I would object to being accused of bringing you here to spite Claudia? When I have a mistress,' he grated, 'I escort no one else until such time as I have left her.'

'Does that mean you've left Signora Medina?' Erica asked bluntly.

'One cannot give up what one has never had.' His thigh pressed harder against her. 'Claudia's husband was like an uncle to me. As a boy I was devoted to him, and when he died I felt it my duty to help his widow. Claudia was not left well provided, and I made it my business to put her affairs in order. But she herself has not been my affair. She is a friend: nothing more.'

'That isn't the impression she gives,' Erica said stiffly, remembering Signora Botelli's comments about the jewellery bills. 'You buy her things,' she added. 'She has come to our shop several times.'

'I buy her a few odd pieces,' he shrugged. 'So what? Money is relative, Erica. A few million lire means nothing to me. It costs me far more to have you look at me with contempt.'

'Don't talk like that,' she said swiftly.

'I am telling you the truth. From the moment I saw you I wanted to be with you.'

'You didn't give that impression.' Knowing she could not get up and run, she decided to do the only possible thing: confront him with his words and make him see it was useless for him to go on flirting with her. 'You didn't fall over yourself inviting me to have lunch with you, and you took another two weeks before you-'

'I told you I went abroad after the luncheon party. And the reason I waited a week before actually inviting you to the Palazzo was because . .He pulled at his lower lip. 'I will be honest and admit that I was fighting my feelings. I wanted to see if I could stop thinking about you.' He caught her hand, squeezing her fingers so tightly that she was hard put not to cry out. 'Do you think I wanted to fall in love with a frigid English girl who would look at me with contemptuous eyes and accuse me of having a mistress!'

'Now you are joking!'

'Only because I dare not be serious. If I am, I will disgrace myself by making violent love to you in front of half of Venice!' He jumped up. 'Come. You are right, we should not have come here. I will take you home.'

Not giving her a chance to speak, he bustled her out and walked her speedily along the quiet streets to her apartment house. Still in silence he escorted her up the steps to her front door, looking oddly out of place in the narrow hallway.

She opened her bag and fumbled for her key. Her fingers seemed all thumbs, but at last she found it and put it into the lock. It turned and she opened the door and then swung round to say good night to him.

'Oh no, you don't,' he muttered, and stepping inside, knocked the door shut with his foot and pulled her violently into his arms.

She tried to draw back, but he was too strong, and he pulled her closer still, so that her body was pressed tightly against his. She felt the warmth of him through the thin silk of her dress, and the heavy pounding of his heart as his arms squeezed her ribs.

'You're hurting me!' she cried.

'Then stop fighting me. I want you and you want me.'

'I don't!'

'You're lying. You do want me, Erica. I have seen it in your eyes all evening. You want me as much as I want you!'

He lowered his head and rested his mouth on hers. She kept her lips closed and was surprised when he did not try to force them apart, content instead to rub them gently.

'You have no need to be frightened of me, little one. I will never wittingly do anything to hurt you.'

'What about unwittingly?' she asked, and felt him draw back slightly, though not enough for her to escape his hold. 'We come from different worlds, Filippo - I know you deny it, but it's true - and because of that, we think differently. You won't be able to help hurting me.'

'You may hurt me too. What about that?'

'Could I hurt you?' she asked slowly. 'You are so strong and self-sufficient.'

He groaned. 'If only you knew how insufficient you have made me!'

Once more his lips were on hers and this time she did not stop herself from responding. Her arms went around his neck and the tenseness left her mouth and body. Feeling her relax, he gave a murmured endearment and then rained quick little kisses along her cheek and down the smooth line of her throat, coming to rest where a pulse beat in the delicate hollow beneath her collar-bone. His hand stroked the silky skin of her shoulder, his fingers as light as the touch of a b.u.t.terfly's wing. She s.h.i.+vered and pressed closer still, feeling him tremble as she did so.

'Erica,' he said urgently, and tilted her face up until her mouth was just below his. His eyes were glazed and so dark that there was no difference between the pupil and the iris. Then the heavy lids lowered and his mouth came down to cover hers.

Desire and fear warred within her and fear won. Her hands moved away from his neck and clenched against his chest as she tried to push him away, at the same time twisting her head to escape his hungry demands. For an instant she thought he was not going to let her go, then he took his mouth from hers and released his tight hold.

'One day you will not be afraid of me,' he said huskily, and catching her hand, raised it to his lips. 'You are an innocent child pretending to be a grown-up young woman.' His eyes lowered to the curve of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and then lifted again to meet her own. 'Sleep well, my little one, and think of me.'

Before she could collect her wits he had gone, and only as she heard his steps swiftly descending the stairs did she run to the window and peer down into the street. She waited for him to turn and wave to her, but he did not look up. Instead he walked swiftly away, disappearing almost at once into the shadows.

Dejected, she turned back to the living room. It had been foolish of her to expect him to wave to her like a lovesick swain. He was too sophisticated to be bowled over by a few kisses, and though she knew he had desired her, she knew also that he could just as easily forget her when they were apart. Yet he had not spoken as if he wanted to forget her, nor as if their evening together had merely been a single, flirtatious interlude. He had gone out of his way to let her know that he felt they had a future together, though he had made no reference as to the terms of it.

She began to undress and, seeing herself in the wardrobe mirror, wondered what Filippo would think if he saw her now. Though slender and fine-boned, she was delicately curved, with small but tip-tilted b.r.e.a.s.t.s and a tiny waist curving out to smooth firm hips. She was as different from the average, well-endowed Italian girl as it was possible to be, and fleetingly wished for more obvious charms, thinking of Claudia Medina as she did so.

How adept the woman had been in insinuating an intimate relations.h.i.+p with Filippo, and how cunningly she had established her desire to please him; even to the extent of asking Erica to design long earrings for her to wear because Filippo liked to see her with her hair drawn back.

Had Filippo been speaking the truth when he said that Claudia was no more than a family friend, and that his care for her financial well-being stemmed only for his affection for her late husband? If this were untrue and he was lying, it could only be for one reason: to make her believe she was not usurping another woman's place nor stepping into a position still warm from someone else's occupancy.

Her cheeks burned at where her thoughts had taken her, and she hurriedly put on her nightdress and slipped between the cool sheets. Would she see Filippo tomorrow? She knew he was going to Rome the day after. But when he had telephoned her today he had given her the option of seeing him tonight or tomorrow evening. Of course this didn't mean he was still free; he could well have made arrangements to see someone else. If only he had made some reference to it or said he would call her when he returned from Rome. But he had left without a word, only his dark eyes speaking a message that was open to so many interpretations that she was afraid to consider them. Perhaps it would be as well not to think of them at all; to take each event as it came.

Inexplicably David Gould came into her mind, and the reference he had made to fate bringing Sophie into his life. It was fate that had brought Sophie into her life too, for the girl's encounter with her in the shop had led to her meeting with Filippo.

Erica sighed and turned deeper into the pillow. Fate had not done badly so far, she mused; she might as well leave the rest to fate too.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

For the whole of the next day Erica waited to hear from Filippo, and when he did not telephone her at the shop, she felt certain she would find a message from him waiting for her at her apartment. But there was no letter on the mat inside her front door and, still believing he would get in touch with her, she did not venture out again, but made herself an omelette and coffee which she took to eat on the small balcony outside her room.

Only as ten o'clock came and went did she admit he was not going to contact her that day, and she went to bed depressed by her disappointment. Tomorrow he was going to Rome and the earliest she could hear from him would be later in the afternoon. Even as she told herself this, she knew she was being childish; Filippo had no reason to call her and he was too much a man of the world to behave like a lovesick schoolboy. Yet though logic told her one thing, her heart led her to believe another.

'Stop kidding yourself,' she said aloud. 'Even if he's attracted to you, he won't let it interfere with his work.' Indeed this was exactly what frightened her. Filippo had such strength of character that he might well be able to compartmentalize his life and put her into one small section of it; whereas she had already made him the whole of hers. This knowledge made her see how vulnerable she had become, and how ready for love she must be if she could have fallen for this man so quickly.

'Am I in love with him or just in love with love?' she asked herself. 'Is it the magic of Venice that has made me so susceptible or would I love Filippo no matter where I had met him?'

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